Any reference to or discussion of any document, act or item of knowledge in this specification is included solely for the purpose of providing a context for the present invention. It is not suggested or represented that any of these matters or any combination thereof formed at the priority date part of the common general knowledge, or was known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which this specification is concerned.
It is known to use captioning facilities to provide a text-based screen display of spoken dialogue and important sounds in, for example, a television show. Captioned text is typically pre-entered into a video comprising the television show or is streamed over a bandwidth to televisions on which the television show is being watched.
European Patent Application EP 2106121 describes a subtitle generation method for live programming. A subtitling technician is assigned to each participant in the particular scene for which subtitles are being generated. Each subtitling technician repeats the words (or a summary thereof) spoken by their assigned participant into a microphone, with the audio signal from the microphone being directed into a voice-to-text recognition system. The generated text is forwarded to a subtitling editor for correction and formatting prior to being inserted in the broadcast stream, for broadcast with the audiovisual signal of the original scene.
In these and related contexts, the term “captioning” typically refers to the on screen display of text for spoken dialogue and other important sounds. In video terminology, a caption typically means a text representation of the audio accompanying the video. Captions are often used by those viewers who are hearing impaired, and will describe what is being said, including emotions, and background sounds.
In these and related contexts, the term “streaming” typically refers to the technique of transferring data such that it can be processed as a steady and continuous stream. Streaming technologies are becoming increasingly important with the growth of the Internet, to avoid the need to download large multimedia files quickly. With streaming, the client browser or plug-in can start displaying the data before the entire file has been transmitted.
Technological advancements have made possible innovations in access solutions that combine captioning and streaming—typically referred to as “text streaming”. Text streaming over the Internet caters to the need for streaming and delivering captions for individual or group events in real time.
Examples, of some currently available streaming technologies include:
1. Quick Time Streaming Media Player
2. Real Media Player
3. MP3—an audio encoding format using data compression.
4. Windows Media Player
5. Adobe Flash Player
These and other currently available streaming technologies have a number of shortcomings. For example, they typically do not allow contemporaneous editing of generated and already streamed content. This means that errors identified in already streamed text strings cannot be corrected for the viewer during a live viewing session. Many of the currently available streaming technologies do not work reliably or at efficient speeds in low bandwidth environments and are typically highly resource intensive. They also do not typically provide display formatting control to viewers of streamed content, are not capable of being delivered through standard web browsers and do not typically deliver authentication control. In addition, currently available streaming technologies do not typically permit interactivity, and they typically only accommodate a single user.
Moreover, currently available streaming technologies do not provide secure, real time, low bandwidth, editable, multi-session, interactive live text streaming to a customisable display in a standard web browser.
The present invention is directed to a system and method which addresses at least some of the above noted shortcomings of currently available streaming technologies.